XL2000: Error When Invalid Characters in Drawing Object Name

ID: Q213565

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Excel 2000

SYMPTOMS

When you run a Visual Basic for Applications macro that references a drawing object's name, you may receive the following error message:

Run-time error '1004':
Unable to get the DrawingObjects property of the Worksheet class

CAUSE

This error occurs if you attempt to reference a drawing object, such as a rectangle, an ellipse, or an AutoShape whose name contains one or more invalid characters.

Valid characters for drawing object names include the following:

Alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9)

Spaces ( )

Underscores (_)

All other characters are invalid and should not be used in drawing object names. For example, "Hello!" is an invalid name for a drawing object.

WORKAROUND

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To work around this behavior, use either of the following methods.

Method 1: If Your Worksheet Contains a Single Drawing Object

If your worksheet contains a single drawing object or if you know that the drawing object in question is the first drawing object in the worksheet, you can reference it in your macro as follows:


ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(1).Select

Method 2: If Your Worksheet Contains Many Drawing Objects

If your worksheet contains a large number of drawing objects, you can use a loop to cycle through the drawing objects, checking each drawing object's name. For example, this sample subroutine will loop through all of the drawing objects in the active worksheet and select the drawing object named "Hello!":


Sub Test()
    For X = 1 To ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects.Count
        If ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(X).Name = "Hello!" Then
            ActiveSheet.DrawingObjects(X).Select
            Exit For
        End If
    Next X
End Sub

Additional query words: XL2000 commandbars oval circle shape

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb